Mike Bellotti grabs the reins of UO athletics

We had a great story in this morning’s paper on Mike Bellotti’s transition to athletic director, written by George Schroeder. Here’s the link.

Among the insights Schroeder details is the change in style from Pat Kilkenny to Bellotti:

If you’re looking for what distinguishes Bellotti from his predecessor, start with that. In two-plus years at the helm, Kilkenny’s management style was to define the goal, then entrust the details to subordinates.

Bellotti?

“Mike’s a hands-on guy,” said Hawkins, who’s worked with Bellotti for years in the football program.

“I’m probably about 180 degrees (different from Kilkenny),” Bellotti said. “I’m not a micromanager, but I really want to know and understand what everybody is doing.”

But these are tough financial times for all athletic departments, and Bellotti is getting dropped right into the thick of it:

Oregon remains in better fianancial shape than many of its counterparts in college athletics. The school is one of 19 athletic departments that is self-sufficient. And a $100 million pledge from Nike founder Phil Knight will be used as a backstop if department operations costs outstrip revenue.

But as the budget for the fiscal year starting July 1 was being prepared, the head coaches of every sport and directors of every department were asked to identify potential cuts of up to 10 percent. Though the final budget hasn’t been released, Bellotti said the cuts probably wouldn’t go that deep — but “it’s going to be tightening the belt.”

Schroeder writes of the trust and confidence Oregon’s coaches express in Bellotti, in the wake of three firings in the department this year:

During the last school year, Kilkenny relieved head coaches of three women’s sports of their duties, and men’s basketball coach Ernie Kent dangled in uncertainty for several weeks near the end of a difficult season.

All four fell short of a standard Kilkenny expressed last winter in an interview with The Register-Guard: Oregon would provide the resources to compete, and coaches in every sport would be expected to consistently finish in the top half of the Pac-10 Conference, which typically translated into a postseason berth.

That might be part of the reason for whispers about an undercurrent of dissension and dissatisfaction among coaches and other staff members.

Several coaches, staff members and others declined to comment or deflected questions about whether winning — or creating revenue — had taken precedence over people and the student-athlete experience. But the phrase “Wait until July 1,” when Bellotti takes over, was uttered frequently, if not for attribution.